Fifteen years prior
This was probably Eduardo's only chance; he had to take it. He surged up with all his energy, pushing violently at Jorge. Jorge stumbled backwards, surprised, and the pocketknife clattered to the ground. Eduardo and Jorge both looked at it, and then at each other - Jorge was obviously going to use his weapon. Eduardo would stand little chance unless he got the advantage. They both dived for the pocketknife. Eduardo got there first, seizing the knife and leaping back, out of Jorge's reach. He held up the pocketknife, preparing to defend himself, but the metal part had vanished. Unfamiliar with the unnatural item, he stared at it, baffled as to where the blade had gone. It seemed to have swiped down, into the black, wooden part. Now, it was utterly useless.
Jorge, using this distraction as an advantage, charged forward, grabbing him. He picked Eduardo off the ground, by the neck, before flinging him a few feet away, toward the cliff edge. Frantically, Eduardo's claws raked at the stone surface, preventing him from falling. The pocketknife had slipped clumsily from his grasp, and he heard it clatter to the ground a few inches away. But then the pocketknife was slipping down the rock, its blade revealed once again. Eduardo looked around, where Jorge was flying at him, screeching. Knowing he had mere seconds left, Eduardo seized the pocketknife before it could slip off the cliff edge, and he whirled around, wildly jabbing the blade forwards. Eduardo's ears rang with the ear-splitting shriek, and he saw the spurt of blood. Down below, everyone stopped fighting as Jorge's screech rang through the air.
Jorge had stiffened, eyes fixed on Eduardo. He opened his beak, as though to say something - before he fell backwards, crashing to the ground without a word. Jorge didn't move - the only sound he made was the gurgle of blood, in his throat, as the air whistled from his pierced lung. The blade must have gone through the lung, into his heart, for an awful lot of blood was being produced - running from the wound, down the rock, and dripping slowly off the side of the cliff. Jorge convulsed, gasping, his blood-shot eyes fixed on Eduardo's - filled with a hatred that made his blood run cold. "You'll regret this." He rasped, before his eyes rolled in their sockets. Horrified gasps sounded from Jorge's tribe below, followed by a shocked silence, as Jorge's breathing stopped. Eduardo, horrified by what he had done, stared in horror at the pocketknife, its blade now red. A drop of blood trickled down the blade, onto the handle, onto his claws. Jorge lay, motionless on the ground, the only sign of movement being the blood trickling from the wound. Eduardo looked at the human item again, before it clattered to the rock under his feet as he dropped it, in revulsion.
Present day
Kerja twirled the ancient, battered pocketknife in her talons, eyes on the blade. Across from her, Mina was sitting with a bowed head, refusing to look at her, as she watched a couple of chicks down below, play-fighting one another. Mina was flinching repeatedly, as she watched one - who was probably only a few weeks old - get thrown against the cave wall, sliding to the ground, before he launched himself back into the mock battle, seizing his opponent. When she was younger, she was tormented and targeted constantly over her relatively tiny size. She had spent the majority of her childhood hanging out with chicks of other species, as they didn't laugh at her for her height.
Mina, not wanting to watch chicks fighting, looked away, at her mother. The string of feathers, one from a tribe that the Hyacinths had driven out, was tied around Kerja's neck, like a necklace. In the middle of the feathers, a jaguar tooth had been tied. The tooth, the necklace, and the pocketknife had belonged to Mina's grandfather. How Kerja's father had gotten the jaguar tooth was unknown. He had claimed, when he was alive, that he had torn it from a jaguar skull. But it looked rather unnaturally polished and sharp - Mina thought that it originated from a human's jewerelly item. Besides, there was no possible way to tear out a jaguar tooth without getting killed by a livid jaguar in the process. On the necklace, there were six feathers in total - but Mina knew of plans to make that nine soon, and she was dreading it.
From birth, she, and other Hyacinth chicks, had been taught that it was 'better to be feared than loved', which had been used to motivate them to fight well. As the matriarch's daughter, it was expected that she exceeded average skills, even despite her major set-back: her abnormal size. Kerja had a deformed talon, Mina was tiny for a Hyacinth - it was bizarre, and unjust. Kerja then set the pocketknife down, and Mina saw the nicks in the wooden handle out of the corner of her eye. There were thirteen of them - one for every bird she had ever killed. Every Hyacinth had a human weapon of their own, and nicks for each kill they had made. Thankfully, not many of them had a lot of nicks on their weapons - most of Mina's fellow tribe members simply battered their opponents to an inch of their life, rather than slaughter them.
For years, the Hyacinths had secretly raided human tour boats and any human campsites - taking sharp objects like scissors and knives. This was probably key to their success, other than their numbers and size. All the weapons were kept deep in the cave, down a tunnel that lead further underground. This tunnel lead to a rock chamber, where an underground stream ran through, flowing into a dark gap into the wall - where this lead, no one knew, but it was where many prisoners had been thrown into the water and into the darkness, presumably to their deaths. The weapons were all kept on ledges. Mina's own weapon was an extremely sharp pencil, to Kerja's utter displeasure. Mina knew that Kerja wanted her to have a knife or something more lethal than a pencil, but in truth, Mina didn't want to hurt anyone. Despite everything Kerja had drummed into her brain, all she wanted was to get away and live a normal life. Mina was planning to make her getaway soon, probably before Kerja's plan was set into action, when Kerja was distracted enough for her to sneak away.
Kerja then let out a high-pitched squawk, her signal for her closest right-wing birds. Her two bodyguards, alongside some other respected members of the Hyacinth tribe, were soon standing before them, bowing to show their respect. Mina looked away, rolling her eyes. "Please rise." Kerja ordered, and she was immediately obeyed. She then looked down at Mina, eyes lighting up with surprise, as if she had just noticed her. "Go away," she said, simply. Mina resisted glaring at her, before getting up and walking away, anger swarming up. She paused around a jutting-out rock, listening in on Kerja and the Hyacinths she had organized. Mina always listened in on Kerja's little secret talks. She peeked around the rock, watching them. Kerja turned to the others, her grey eyes hardening. "So, when will the first stage of the plan commence? Suggestions?"
"I suggest a few days, if not a week, from now." Rasped one of her bodyguards. "We'll strike a member who holds importance to their tribe - they often go on human boats, our spies have reported. The ones who usually go are kids - the grandchildren of Eduardo, and one of them would've been suitable, but there's a problem. The teenagers in question have vanished. They took some things from a human boat, before leaving the sanctuary and heading west. We can't use one of them for the plan."
"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Kerja said, acerbically, making the bodyguard look down, ashamed. "Any more ideas?" she asked, looking around the small group.
"What about Eduardo's son-in-law? Surely he has information?" an older female prompted, but Kerja was already shaking her head.
"No, that's not a good idea, Beryl. He's never alone when he leaves that ravine of theirs, and as of recent, he hasn't been seen outside that ravine for days. Our spies have been monitoring possible targets, however, and they've narrowed them down to these." Mina heard the scratching of earth as Kerja began drawing in the soil. Her heart began flickering like butterfly wings - what on earth was her mother and matriarch plotting? "Which one is best?" she asked, looking at them expectantly.
"How about Mimi?" said Beryl. But then she shook her head. "No, actually. She's as stubborn as a capybara. Scratch that suggestion."
"What about one of these three?" prompted the other bodyguard, extending his talon and touching his talon to a name in the loose soil that had been brought in from the outside, for Kerja to draw out her plans. Mina peered around the rock, trying to make out the small lettering, but from her position, she couldn't tell. The bodyguard sounded confident and certain as he spoke. "Surely one of these knows key information. These three are related to Eduardo's wingman, after all - they must know something. I'd suggest the wingman himself, but he's probably far too stubborn to tell us what we need to know. One of these is probably easier to extract information from." Mina frowned, squinting at the names - then she identified them. She had been piecing together Kerja's secret discussions, and now she knew what her deranged mother was plotting. They can't be serious… those names? Two of them are teenagers! They're going to interrogate kids? She then felt sickened - since Kerja had come into power, the Hyacinths used interrogation to get the information they needed. But when the one in question refused to speak? Not all the nicks on Kerja's pocketknife marked a kill in battle - they represented another form of murder.
Meanwhile
"Wow, this brings back a few memories!" Carla remarked, as she landed on the boat's roof beside Bruno. She tripped a little, but Bruno put out a wing, preventing her from losing her footing. "Thank you, Brunie." She said, brightly, and Bruno gave her a warm smile. The brown of his eyes always looked even warmer whenever he looked at her. Carla turned, looking at Tiago as he landed on the metal. "Don't you dare do what you did last time, T." she warned, exchanging an annoyed look with Bia. Bia nodded in agreement, remembering the rude awakening they had received on that first night in the Amazon, sleeping on the tour boat for the night. She had been dreaming about butterflies when the ear-splitting sound of the boat horn had jolted them all from sleep.
"I'm telling you!" Tiago insisted, rolling his eyes. He had been putting up with this false accusation for around a year - but it hadn't been his fault. "I don't know how the boat's horn sounded, but it was nothing to do with me. I was asleep until that noise woke me up!"
"Oh, sure." Bia said, rolling her own eyes, hanging the bag of supplies on a peeling piece of metal. "Admit it, it was obviously you - who else could it have been?"
"I swear on the Brazil nut grove that it was nothing to do with me!" Tiago said, indignantly.
"Okay, fine." Orchid said, as she lighted down, perching in a life ring that hung on the wall. "If the grove is gone when we get back, you sounded the boat horn. Capiche?"
"It'll be there!" Tiago vowed, hopping onto the ring, beside Orchid. Bia snorted with laughter, before looking for a good spot to sleep. Orchid and Tiago had settled into the life ring, and Carla and Bruno had made a comfortable sleeping spot beside a coil of rope. Azure gave her a nudge.
"How about there?" Azure asked Bia, indicating toward a pile of sacks. Azure walked up, patted the sack beneath him with his talons, testing its comfort, before sitting down with a yawn. Bia hopped across the metal roof, before she joined him on the sacks. Azure moved his wing, so it was wrapped around her. "How are you feeling?" he asked, quietly, his blue and amber-flecked gaze set on her hazel eyes. "You've seemed on the edge all day." Bia gazed up at the swath of stars above them, reminded of that star-studded night where she had shared her first kiss with Azure. They'd had this conversation twice already.
"I'm still sceptical about this whole endeavour." She confessed. "I don't know if we're going for nothing. I know, we keep having this conversation, and you're probably sick of it."
"Hey, hey." Azure murmured, touching her cheek with a wing. "I could never be sick of anything you say. And don't stress it - we'll find the plant. Jewel'll be okay, just you wait and see." Bia wanted to belief him, but a part of her just couldn't believe it.
"I'm still terrified, though." Bia sighed, before she closed her eyes. Azure's eyes flashed with concern and sympathy, and he wrapped his wing around her more tightly. After some moments, Azure had drifted off into sleep, as had the rest of their companions. Tiago and Orchid were perched in the safety ring, Orchid tucked under Tiago's wing - and Carla slept a few inches away from Bruno, propped against the rope coil, while Bruno had his head tucked under his right wing.
Bia was comforted by the warmth of Azure and his slow, gentle heartbeat, but inside, she was still frightened of the journey ahead, and - more importantly - the thought of discovering that the Estrella wasn't real. If they never found it, could they find the courage to turn back - admit defeat - go home to a dying loved one? It was far beyond unimaginable.
Mina's the last new OC after this, I promise. She's not even having a large appearance, anyway.
No more edits. Just in case you're wondering what I changed, I didn't change much - extended a few descriptions, combined some chapters and cuts unnecessary bits and characters out, things like that. In 'Unwanted Visitors', Eduardo and Kerja's history is more hinted at, and Kerja has her pocketknife with her - this is really the only major change.
I'm only 15 - it's not my entire fault my writing's not 100% perfect. I'm not the only one, either - so many stories I've read on here mimic my mistakes, and famous book series I've read have them. The Maze Runner, Twilight, Divergent, all those famous books - they all have their errors. So don't be too harsh on this, and what annoys me most is when people state the obvious in reviews. Don't rub it in my face when I say I already know what's wrong. It's incredibly annoying and makes me feel like a terrible writer, even if you never intend such a thing. Thanks.